I like the reverse button for helm overall, but I feel like the ability to reverse at 100% is making combat a bit dull.

Having played Artemis both before and after the "Reverse" button was added to helm, I feel like it's made a lot of beam combats less interesting. While I find reverse useful, I almost always find myself ordering my helm to kite enemy ships in reverse to engage them one at a time and it gets rather predictable quickly. The problem is, it seems to always be the "correct" choice and it feels wrong ordering sub-optimal tactics just to keep things fun. I sort of miss the old days when we had to crank maneuverability and skirt around one enemy ship, trying to keep the others out of range, far more fun for my helmsman and it usually led to a lot more tactical thinking from my crew overall.

It would make a lot more sense if the ship could only reverse at 30-50% of it's forward impulse speed, especially for combat. That way the Artemis could still kite a ship short term against a big fleet, but risks the others catching up and overwhelming it, forcing more interesting tactical play. Reverse kiting remains useful, but stops being the "right choice" every fight.

Is there a quick and easy way for me to mod the game to put a nerf on my ship's reverse speeds? I'd love to test this out and report back how it affects things overall. A variable that sets reverse to X% of the forward speed would be perfect.

You make a good point. Artemis has four "can't lose" tactics, I think:

Blast enemies with manual beams at 300% power

Kite enemies into following your backwards movement

Kite enemies into black holes or mines

Kite Space Monsters into Enemies

Thom nerfed the last one by making space monsters eventually retreat into a black hole so that tactic cannot be used to clear the map of all enemies, but still there is no downside to using it whenever possible. It might be nice if there were downsides to all of these tactics.__________________"The Admiralty had demanded six ships; the economists offered four; and we finally compromised on eight."- Winston Churchill

Technically speaking, there is no way a spaceship should not be able to move in reverse just as fast as it can in the forward direction. Technically, it should be able to move left, right, up and down just as fast as it can forward and/or back.

And technically, there shouldn't be an upper limit on forward speed. You should be able to accelerate infinitely - or until you hit the speed of light anyway.

However, that's physics, and this is gameplay. I'm assuming the limit on forward speed is not based on any law of the universe, but how fast the ship's computing systems are able to respond to Helm inputs and produce the desired result, given the limits of the ship's maneuvering thrusters. It would do no good to order the ship to come to a complete stop and have it take days to accomplish that because you're travelling close to the speed of light and can only slow down by a tiny fraction of that speed.

If that's the case, then it would make sense that a spaceship would have more thrust capability in the forward direction than the rear. And it would make sense that the top speed, defined as a multiple of that thrust for safety's sake, would be lower too. If you want to assume the ship's Impulse exhaust is towards the rear, as in Star Trek, and deflected by some sort of baffles into reverse thrust, then it similarly makes sense that only a portion could be directed towards backwards and sideways movement.

I actually thought reverse thrust was slower than forward thrust, and I see no reason why it shouldn't be. You will probably still be able to "kite", but Engineering would have to divert more power to Impulse to do it, and it would be even harder to manage against faster ships like Skaraans. Particularly on high difficulty levels.

I'll note that in my own personal headcanon, Warp 1 (for a Light Cruiser) is the speed of light, so then maximum Impulse is 1/10 of the speed of light. Ships could be constrained to that speed in order to avoid time dilation effects, and no ship would travel over 50% of the speed of light except in emergencies. Fighters travel at 30% of the speed of light, which would be the fastest a TSN ship would go under normal combat conditions. (The enemies would travel faster than that at high difficulties, but still slower than Warp 1)

Of course, if Warp 1 is not the speed of light, then Impulse would be even slower according to the 1/10 ratio. The actual value at the heart of all this is the rate at which the Artemis accelerates, which I have never tried to conclusively test. The ratio between acceleration, top impulse speed and Warp has to be in proportion in order for the ship to respond as you expect.

Miskatonic - have you tried setting the Enemies to have faster speeds?? Can boost {in 20% increments} their speed. Not as fast as warp, but enough that fighters may be forked. {As in out-run by a capital ship....} Nota Bene that Enemies do get "boosts" from difficulties over 5 {I think...} One of the options under Customize button. {May also want to reduce sensor range a bit!}

Mike - as for #1, more enemies. Sooner of later that 300% boost WILL overheat the guns. #2 is also countered by #MoreEnemies. In this case "they" trade time {and body count} for time for other fleets to ravage your bases. #3 - I see no fix. If "they" are dumb enough to follow where they shouldn't go, their bad. At least they've gotten smarter about NOT going into minefields. Something FRIENDLY ships need to develop! And #4, as you've noted, was treated by making Space Monsters leave the field of battle. Monsterbaiting was a prime tactic. {Hmmmmm, I've never tagged a SM - yet.....}

__________________on TeamSpeak as GreyBeard {the Grim} ;-)Chief Engineer of the Fulminata, one of the Pirates Of BeechWood!

Originally Posted by DupeOfURLMike - as for #1, more enemies. Sooner of later that 300% boost WILL overheat the guns.

Not if the Engineer is on her toes. You only need the power while you are firing - the rest of the time can be spent cooling.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DupeOfURL#2 is also countered by #MoreEnemies. In this case "they" trade time {and body count} for time for other fleets to ravage your bases.

This won't make much difference unless the enemies have elite abilities.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DupeOfURL#3 - I see no fix. If "they" are dumb enough to follow where they shouldn't go, their bad. At least they've gotten smarter about NOT going into minefields. Something FRIENDLY ships need to develop!

It's actually a bit nuanced. Taunted enemies don't stay enraged forever. You have limited time to lure them into danger. I think the mechanism is pretty good as it is.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DupeOfURLAnd #4, as you've noted, was treated by making Space Monsters leave the field of battle. Monsterbaiting was a prime tactic. {Hmmmmm, I've never tagged a SM - yet.....}

It's a shame that Comms has no interaction with Space Monsters. That would make Science-based missions more fun for the whole crew.__________________"The Admiralty had demanded six ships; the economists offered four; and we finally compromised on eight."- Winston Churchill

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